The persistence and proliferation of pseudoscientific thinking in contemporary culture demands explanation. By Sebastian Normandin.

“Deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.” ― Carl Sagan

When most people hear the word “gremlins,” the first image that may pop into their heads is that of the strange reptilian creatures from the 1984 Joe Dante film of the same name, where the titular little monsters run amok and cause chaos within a small town. However, what some people may not realize is that these were actually based upon allegedly real entities which, during the Second World War and even before... By Brent Swancer.

I’m not a vacation kind of guy. Oh, sure I’m a consummate relaxer, but a comfy couch, good book, and some video games with my seven year old son beats a long plane flight, rental car, hotel room, and tourist traps on any day. Don’t get me wrong, I tend to enjoy travelling once I’ve arrived...

My quest to understand what the dying see began when I found out that my mom only had a few months (if that) to live. I wanted to be familiar with the stages she would go through and how I could best be there for her... By Jen Engevik.

If we want to understand what’s happening in the brain when people ‘hear voices’, we first need to understand what happens during ordinary inner speech. By Peter Moseley.

At one lake in Venezuela, lightning flashes 28 times a minute. By Ella Davies.

Almost 100 years ago, an English aristocrat found the secrets of dream control. Her adventures explored the limits of consciousness – which modern science has only now rediscovered. By David Robson.

It’s a strange footnote of history. Something happened in World War II that doesn’t really make any sense, and nobody really seems to give a lot of thought as to why it happened outside of military academies. Germany never invaded Britain. It seems crazy... By Sable Aradia.

He thought he was being personally haunted by a ghost. By Melissa Dahl.

Avies Platt’s account of her meeting with Yeats was recently discovered by Peter Scupham in a carrier bag of diary entries and other bits and bobs. She died in 1976. ‘M.M.’ has not been identified.

Anomalistics is in desperate need of a philosophy that really ties the room together. Call it “anomalism”, or “anomaloofness”, or El Philisophico Anomalistico if you’re not into the whole brevity thing. Maybe you’re into strange phenomena, maybe you’re not, but make no mistake, those strange phenomena abide, regardless of whether you feel they have any significance in your life...

From spotting galaxies millions of light years away to perceiving invisible colours, Adam Hadhazy explains why your eyes can do incredible things. By Adam Hadhazy.

“The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same” - Stendhal. Sheep aren’t stupid. They’re almost as smart as pigs, and at about the same level as cattle. Sure, they won’t be writing any heartbreaking novels of staggering genius or winning on Jeopardy anytime soon...

Just when you crave one more sensual hit, the void of the float tank stops time, strips ego and unleashes the mind. By M. M. Owen.

Some people enjoy music so much that the sensations can be compared to sex. How does a good song move the body and mind in this way, asks David Robson.

There have been three nuclear power plant meltdowns that have captured worldwide attention and left the general public with the opinion that nuclear power is too dangerous to rely upon...

In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, some have been accused of harboring a sense of “carbon chauvinism,” expecting other life-forms in the universe to be made of the same biochemical building blocks as we are and tailoring our searches accordingly. Here are 10 examples of biological and nonbiological systems that stretch the definition of “life.”

And he’s filed for a patent. By Doug Bierend.

Classical physics, with its totally determinative, forward-in-time, billiard-ball causation, requires sweeping anomalies like psi under the rug, not to mention resigning ourselves to an absence of higher meaning and direction in the universe. Even the local islands of order allowed within the framework of dynamical systems theory... By Eric Wargo.